U.S. Oil Demand Fell to 18-Year Low for January, API Says

U.S. January oil demand fell to the lowest level for the month in 18 years as a weak economy reduced consumption, the American Petroleum Institute reported.

Total petroleum deliveries, a measure of demand, dropped 1.7 percent from a year earlier to 18 million barrels a day, the industry-funded group said in a monthly report today. Total consumption fell 2 percent in 2012, the API said last month. The U.S. jobless rate increased to 7.9 percent from 7.8 percent in January.

“The January numbers reprise last year’s theme of weak demand,” John Felmy, chief economist at the API, said in the report. “This isn’t surprising given an economy that’s still treading water.”

January petroleum demand fell 2.4 percent from December, according to the API. Gasoline deliveries were 8.38 million barrels a day, up 2.4 percent from a year earlier and down 2.3 percent from December.

Use of distillate fuel, a category that includes heating oil and diesel, slid 6 percent from a year earlier to 3.6 million barrels a day. Demand for ultra-low-sulfur diesel, the type used by the trucking industry, fell 4.4 percent to 3.11 million.

Jet fuel consumption decreased 0.5 percent from a year earlier to 1.31 million barrels a day.

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The right person should be able to figure out the real unemployment and other statistics from this number being reported. The economy runs on oil, yet we have become more efficient with oil usage, yet it is used in more items such as plastics, etc, while the population has increased quite a bit from 18 years ago. I would think this is a pretty telling number for someone to crunch the numbers, such as John Williams, who I am sure is on it.

From 60 million gallons per day to 30 million per day, looks like MPG has finally broken through the barrier and increasing by the year, or half the working population has dropped out of the work force?

Were on our way to oil freedom, looks like in the next couple years at most we will be down to a 1/3rd of what we once used with a 1/3rd more population. This all happened within a few years of the news media or government not even telling us.

Why market manipulation? Oil just had to catch up with Gold/silver for a bit, oil has fallen. I wish people weren't so conspiratorial.

We should be angry at Fed and government, not "manipulators"

Your view of the world of human affairs is very small and linear, judging by this response.

Conspiracies are all around us; large ones, small ones - some profoundly evil and others relatively innocuous.

Unless supply has dried up, a decrease in demand should be followed by decreased prices. Econ 001. That has not happened. At the moment the price of oil is completely decoupled from those of silver and gold. The FRN, while losing purchasing power, has by some mechanism been successfully propped up - given what should be happening in the wake of the printing of trillions of dollars. Because the FRN is the financial lingua franca of the petroleum world, the price of its products should still behave more or less as one would expect, again barring a significant shortage of supply that outstrips the decrease in demand. That has not been reported and therefore one need almost necessarily infer something funny going on.

All else equal, were the oil companies in the game solely to provide product at the best possibly price in freely competitive markets, we should see the prices fall. This indicates to me that the oil companies are not in the game just for the presumed reasons. Something more is going on. Collusion? Conspiracy. Social engineering. Conspiracy. Politics. Conspiracy. No matter how you slice this pie, the serious consideration of possible conspiracy of one sort or another should be undertaken. If it looks like a duck...

Through lives and lives shalt thou pay, O' king.

"So I guess we're going to have "heck week" from now on"
-Master Chief, SEAL V, bitching about PC being foisted on the teams, as related by my little brother, some years back.

Not necessarily, osan. Heading to bed right now, but I am fairly sure that worldwide demand has picked back up since the slump of 07-08. Oil is a global commodity, and its price is based on the margins like everything else. Although the supply may be going up the cost of extraction is likewise going up for these more marginal barrels. Though local demand for oil may be dropping, it is increasing elsewhere. Of course there is more than just the Oil factor in gasoline, given the whole winter/summer blend thing, and refineries switching and such.

Your view of the world of human affairs is very small and linear, judging by this response.

Conspiracies are all around us; large ones, small ones - some profoundly evil and others relatively innocuous.

Unless supply has dried up, a decrease in demand should be followed by decreased prices. Econ 001. That has not happened. At the moment the price of oil is completely decoupled from those of silver and gold. The FRN, while losing purchasing power, has by some mechanism been successfully propped up - given what should be happening in the wake of the printing of trillions of dollars. Because the FRN is the financial lingua franca of the petroleum world, the price of its products should still behave more or less as one would expect, again barring a significant shortage of supply that outstrips the decrease in demand. That has not been reported and therefore one need almost necessarily infer something funny going on.

All else equal, were the oil companies in the game solely to provide product at the best possibly price in freely competitive markets, we should see the prices fall. This indicates to me that the oil companies are not in the game just for the presumed reasons. Something more is going on. Collusion? Conspiracy. Social engineering. Conspiracy. Politics. Conspiracy. No matter how you slice this pie, the serious consideration of possible conspiracy of one sort or another should be undertaken. If it looks like a duck...

No it is just the fact that very few people have control over most of the oil production and that the modern society can not function without oil so they can ask for any price they want.Almost all mayor oil producers either have nationalized their oil fields or have the same 2-3 corporations exploiting them.

Russia showed the power of owning natural resources a few years ago when they decided to halt distribution of natural gas to Europe over a price dispute with Ukraine in the middle of winter.There is no replacement for oil and the oil masters know it.Everything is dependent on oil.

The right person should be able to figure out the real unemployment and other statistics from this number being reported. The economy runs on oil, yet we have become more efficient with oil usage, yet it is used in more items such as plastics, etc, while the population has increased quite a bit from 18 years ago. I would think this is a pretty telling number for someone to crunch the numbers, such as John Williams, who I am sure is on it.

There is no way you can extrapolate unemployment numbers from oil comsumption. Let's take a look at this graph showing historic consumption of oil in the United States. This is total- not per capita. I particularly want to point out what happened in the 1970's.

We had some oil shocks back then (oil embargos) and the price skyrocked. What happened? Demand was reduced. People not only drove less, they began to demand higher fuel efficiency cars. Prior to that, gas was so cheap people didn't care about mileage. Demand fell by so much and efficiency in use also impoved so much that it was nearly 25 years before we started consuming as much- despite the population and economy growing. This was completely unrelated to what was going on with unemployment.

There is no way you can extrapolate unemployment numbers from oil comsumption. Let's take a look at this graph showing historic consumption of oil in the United States. This is total- not per capita. I particularly want to point out what happened in the 1970's.

We had some oil shocks back then (oil embargos) and the price skyrocked. What happened? Demand was reduced. People not only drove less, they began to demand higher fuel efficiency cars. Prior to that, gas was so cheap people didn't care about mileage. Demand fell by so much and efficiency in use also impoved so much that it was nearly 25 years before we started consuming as much- despite the population and economy growing. This was completely unrelated to what was going on with unemployment.

Interesting chart you posted. Looking at it I see the downward direction at recessions but then you see around 2000 when a recession was underway it basically just plateaued. Your perspective on people making adjustments makes me want to look into how much oil is actually used for just driving and industries the whole breakdown. Yes since the SUV craze died and people started buying cars again I could see that impacting a bit but around 2008 I have seen a lot less traffic. Wonder if this chart is showing all of our industries leaving this country.

There were 109,598,000,000 fewer vehicle miles driven for the 12 months ended Nov. 2011 than there were for the 12 months ended Nov. 2007. About a 3.6% decline (from 3,038,954,000,000 to 2,929,356,000,000).

The decline from April 1979 to May 1980 was 3.2%.

The decline from Nov. 1973 to Oct. 1974 was 2.1%.

"Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."
Ronald Reagan, 1981

Govt is not smart enough to realize that cheap energy is a required thing in the US to help the economy boom.Then they would get more tax revenue to spend on Mango farmers in Pakistan. They are the leach who does not know when to fall from the host and find another because there is no blood left.

There is no way you can extrapolate unemployment numbers from oil comsumption. Let's take a look at this graph showing historic consumption of oil in the United States. This is total- not per capita. I particularly want to point out what happened in the 1970's.

We had some oil shocks back then (oil embargos) and the price skyrocked. What happened? Demand was reduced. People not only drove less, they began to demand higher fuel efficiency cars. Prior to that, gas was so cheap people didn't care about mileage. Demand fell by so much and efficiency in use also impoved so much that it was nearly 25 years before we started consuming as much- despite the population and economy growing. This was completely unrelated to what was going on with unemployment.